THE Hope Energy Development (HED) company intends on commissioning the approximately US$30M wind farm at Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD) before the end of 2020.

“We want to spend some time getting approval and finalising things with the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) but, we hope to start the project next year and finish by the end of the year,” said Project General Manager, Dr. John Sydow, during a scoping exercise, which was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), at the Hope Secondary School on Tuesday.

He said after “breaking ground” the construction of the wind farm will take at least six months, if all goes well.
Project Coordinator of HED, Frederick Sukdeo said the project at Hope is just a pilot, which will have just about four wind turbines. The turbines will produce up to four megawatts of power.

“This is just a pilot project to see how feasible the project would be… once completed, it will provide power at an affordable cost to GPL. With the first project, we can come in at a price that is just below what GPL is paying,” said Sukdeo.

In about 20 years, the company anticipates that the project will grow and expand to about 40 wind turbines, which will produce up to 50 megawatts of power; with this the company can sell power for six cents to eight cents. Compared to now, even when oil prices increase, it would not affect the cost of power from the wind farm.

The Hope Wind Farm Project initially began in 2001, but was halted due to GPL’s lack of infrastructure needed at the time.

The project is capable of supplying 7,000 homes with clean electricity, leading to fuel savings of 14.5 million litres per year. Additionally, 30 to 40 construction jobs are expected to be created, and $1B yearly will be saved in fuel imports.

As company gears up for a 2020 launch, they have applied to the EPA for environmental authorisation for the project.

According to the EPA, the project aims to generate electricity using the wind farm to feed into GPL’s grid. And, in accordance with the laws, HED is required to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before the EPA can decide whether to grant environmental authorisation. The EIA would study various aspects of the environment to see the potential impact and the necessary actions to be taken to minimise impact.